When Websites are More Like a Choose Your Own Adventure Story

Delightful, or Frustrating?

There are several navigation elements that can be used in UI design. The kind of navigation you choose for your website can create a delightful user experience, or it can just be frustrating for users. For the last few years we've seen emerging trends in our approach to navigation. Hidden navigation is one example. Over half of Internet usage is happening on mobile devices now. Designing for mobile devices means finding creative ways to use every single pixel of screen, so hidden navigation was born. Hiding menus and other features until the user needs them also improves the UX for devices with more screen real estate. Hiding the navigation lets users focus on one thing at a time. When the users needs the menu it becomes their central focus. Not all navigation solutions are going to work for your website though. You still need to consider the user. Why are they on your website? What are they trying to do? What is the context of their experience?

Curated Content for Your Edification

Here are two excellent articles specifically about navigation. The first is a list of 10 navigation trends to look for, and the second is a list of 5 common navigation mistakes. Creative Bloq 10 website navigation trends for 2017 This article explains:

• popular, and effective types of navigation
• how they are being used properly
• when you would use a particular navigation

kissmetrics Are you making these common website navigation mistakes? One of the biggest mistakes that you can make is to have non-standard styling for your navigation. The article explains the 5 common navigation mistakes along with examples. Bonus: the article also includes 5 examples of navigations that nailed it! We hope you enjoy!